


Digitoxin

by crowsmile



Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Eye Horror, Gen, Hallucinations, Hypnotism, Mind Control, Short One Shot, all that stuff is super mild, wilson. stop making deals with satan smh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 13:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12985464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crowsmile/pseuds/crowsmile
Summary: Puppet-masters aren't inherently evil. They merely do terrible things in exchange for power– and sometimes, they aren't given a choice. One-shot.





	Digitoxin

The arrival of his shadow was hailed by its perfume– saccharine, rotting, funeral flowers left out too long. Wilson frowned, back flat against the brambled back of the throne. It would speak first. It always did.  
“Darling, are you feeling quite alright?” it murmured, perhaps falsely concerned. Its taloned hand rested upon Wilson’s, uncannily cold, a chitinous surface sending a chill to his bones. Wilson didn’t turn to face it; he didn’t need to, after all. Its eyes flashed with hot fuchsia, the color of digitalis blossoms– and just as deadly- and burned into the side of his skull. Wilson chuckled awkwardly, flexing his fingers against the throne as if they were being numbed by the shadow’s hand.  
“I’m– I’m perfectly well. Just a little distracted from my work, is all,” he muttered, furrowing his brow. “I’m sure I will be back in the mood for a little slaughter soon.”

The doppelgänger laughed, a hollow, cold tone, like a stone rattling within a metal tin. “Ah, well. If only I could give you the luxury of time to refocus,” it chortled, heels clacking on the stone floor as it paced towards the front of the throne. Wilson glanced up briefly, then returned his gaze to his lap. The shadow’s face was like his, but not quite– smooth porcelain skin, devoid of scars, and shining eyes that lolled emptily in their sockets like fake jewels. It was hard to look at, that godawful caricature of himself, the merest sight twisting a burning knot in the bottom of his stomach. The shadow scoffed. “Well, do you mind enlightening me as to what’s troubling you?” it asked impatiently, absentmindedly checking its lethally sharp manicure.  
Wilson laughed incredulously.  
“We’re supposed to be the same man. Can’t you read my mind?”  
The shadow smiled, casting a half-lidded gaze over to Wilson. “I would, if your thoughts made any sense right now,” it mused, a grin spreading across its face. “You seem to be... disappointed in yourself. Yet you are a god. What is there to be disappointed about?”  
He could only scoff. “You know damn well that I have my moments of insecurities.”  
“Well, I seem to remember a little pampering cheered you right up, hm?” the shadow recalled aloud. Its eyes flicked towards Wilson, iris spinning disorientingly around the pupil. Wilson choked on his own spit, suddenly nauseous, and snapped his eyes shut against the leering whirl of color. “Last time you killed just who I asked for– with your own creative flair, of course– I gave you a little reward, didn’t I?” the shadow inquired coolly. Wilson could feel the china grasp of its hand on his neck, a quiet threat, a calm reminder of who was in truly power. “So, how’s-about we get ourselves a new plaything for the constant, and then I give you a gift for your trouble.”

Wilson raised his eyebrows, not daring to open his eyes for an instant.  
“Surely, you don’t mean kidnapping,” he asked, although he feared the answer. His body shivered against the back of the throne, remembering just how it felt to be ripped from reality, your very self stolen away to hell– how the shadows that grasped him felt just like the talons at his neck.  
The shadow chuckled childishly, loosening its grasp on his throat. Wilson’s eyes flicked open for a second, just catching the tail end of an obnoxiously showman-like twirl as the shadow waltzed away.  
“You and your morality,” it hummed, giving Wilson an obnoxious glance, pale face framed by the fiendish curl of thorned shoulders. “I’m offering you the most fantastic of opportunities, darling, and yet you turn me down,” it murmured, every syllable punctuated with palpable disappointment. 

“My dear, I know why you’re disappointed,” it remarked suddenly, spinning on its heels. Wilson backed up as far into the throne, the airy throne room becoming oppressively cramped. The burning orchid of the shadows eyes was roiling, boiling over into a thousand different pupils, coaxing his vision to tunnel. Sweat cloyed at Wilson’s collar, body spasming as the last of his willpower was dragged out through his mouth, his eyes, his pores. The shadow sneered, bearing rows of spinning teeth, serrated edges sparking against each other.  
“I know why you’re disappointed. You’ve spent your whole life studying, trying to make yourself some kind of name, and yet you’ve been forgotten. No one’s looking for you since you disappeared. No one cares about you– no one, except for me. I’m the one who’ll give you another chance, give you a position that a man of your intellectual caliber deserves!”

Heart fluttering in his throat, and nose burning with the stench of rot, Wilson recoiled, sputtering. The shadow leaned close, mouth agape as it monologued, shreds of smoke dancing in the choking atmosphere. Its teeth and eyes melted and snapped in the air, phosphenes to the opened eye. “All this time, you’ve been serving as nothing but a groundskeeper for your predecessors, for Maxwell,” spat the doppelgänger with the ferocity of a cobra. “I’ll make you a king, just you wait. You’ll be able to uproot Maxwell’s creations, burn them before his very eyes, dissolve every achievement he’s ever made! They’ll remember you, they’ll remember you for sure, every time they run screaming from your creations. You’ll be the one they think of when they lay eyes on their own corpses or the foxglove growing wild amongst innocuous flowers. They’ll know you as the one who gave the Constant a little more flavor and risk,” the shadow barked, hissing like a tea-kettle about to over boil. It flicked its molasses-dark tongue over flawless lips as it shifted its talons down along Wilson’s arms, freeing them from their bindings against the throne. “All you have to do, darling, is shake my hand. Nothing’s holding you back.”

Overwhelmed in almost every aspect of the word, Wilson lifted his arm. The movement was lethargic and shaky as his atrophied muscles worked for the first time in ages, a limp placement of his trembling hand onto the outstretched talons of the shadow. He choked back tears and vomit, and, blinking sweat out of his eyes, looked up at the carved marble visage that mimicked his own.  
“I accept.” The words dripped from his mouth like bile, harsh and terrible in his throat. “Don’t disappoint me.”  
The shadow beamed. “Or you’ll do what, hm? Spit on me?” it snapped, shaking Wilson’s hand with a singular hunger. Its pupils had contracted to mocking pinpricks, the tiny darkness enclosed sparkling with a malicious humor. It took almost every ounce of remaining strength for Wilson to avoid actually spitting on its detestably polished shoes. The shadow chuckled.

“Well, now that we’ve gotten those long-overdue formalities out of the way,” it said in a singsong tone. “I hope you have an idea surrounding who, exactly, you’re going to invite into our little universe.” It leaned in, a heron over a struggling fish.  
“We’re going to have a lot of fun together, are we not, darling?”


End file.
